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democracy

By Ted Dunlap, on October 25th, 2013

“Don’t forget that pure democracy is a form of collectivism — it readily sacrifices individual rights to majority wishes. Since it involves no constitutional bill of rights, or at least, no working and effective one, the majority-of-the-moment can and does vote away the rights of the minority-of-the-moment, even of a single individual. This has been called ‘mob rule,’ the ‘tyranny of the majority’ and many other pejorative names. It is one of the greatest threats to liberty, the reason why America’s founding fathers wrote so much so disparagingly of pure democracy.”— Bert Randhttp://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Bert.Rand.Quote.D061“The primary goal of collectivism — of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America — is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals’ lives. This is done in the name of equality. People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government.”— George WillJournalistSource: December 15, 2005, Environmentalism as a Cover for Collectivismhttp://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-12_15_05_GW_pf.htmlhttp://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/George.Will.Quote.6E5E“A pure democracy … can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party… Hence it is that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in thier deaths.”— James Madison(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US PresidentSource: James Madison, Federalist No. 10http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/James.Madison.Quote.5A47

selected quotations

Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.